A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 3

by Henry Charles Lea

The provision that the accusation should be presented within ten days after arrest was repeated in 1518 and seems to have been considered as still in force in 1594, for its observance is included in interrogatories prepared for a visitation in that year, but the Instructions of 1561, while requiring the fiscal to present it within that limit, give discretion to the inquisitors as to the time of admitting the prisoner to an audience after his arrest, and prescribe no definite intervals between the monitions.[210] This discretion was abused to the utmost and the Suprema seems to have abandoned all effort to check procrastination, except in special cases which threatened to become immortal. The tribunals kept their unfortunate prisoners lying for months before granting the first audience and, as this required no preparation, its postponement was mere callous indifference without excuse. In a group of eight cases at Valladolid, in 1647, a year was allowed to elapse between the arrest and first audience, and subsequent intervals, varying from one month to eight, before the third monition which was synchronous with the accusation.[211] When there was this heartless delay at the commencement of a case, it is not to be supposed that there would be any alacrity in speeding the subsequent stages of the cumbrous routine, or any conscientious awakening from the supine indifference of the tribunals, with their multitude of officials and diminishing work. I have already alluded to the Mexican case of Joseph Brunon de Vertiz, in which there was nothing to prevent a regular and speedy course of action; and a brief abstract of the successive steps of his trial will show how he was tortured through suspense and anxiety to death. Between January 25, 1650, and his end on April 30, 1656, he was but once summoned to an audience and then it was only to ask him whether he had anything more to say.[212] Similar examples can be cited in the Peninsula. Gabriel Escobar, a cleric in the lower Orders, was arrested by the Toledo tribunal in 1607, on a charge of Illuminism and, in 1622, he died in prison, leaving his trial unfinished.[213] On a similar charge, Vicente Hernan was arrested in Valencia, September 23, 1592, and on August 25, 1695, the Suprema took the tribunal to task, because the accusation had not yet been presented, and pointed out that two years and a half had elapsed since his last audience, and the case was no nearer an end than before.[214]

This procrastination continued to the end. A writer, about 1750, attributes the endless prolongation of the trials to the inefficiency of the inquisitors, and this again to the meagreness of the salaries, which prevents the selection of capable men, but the Suprema itself was frequently to blame by its delay in acting when everything had to be submitted to its approval. Thus when the Logroño tribunal sent to it, September 9, 1818, a sumaria, on statement of the evidence, against Fernando de la Hoceja for irreverence to the sacrament, it was not until June 9, 1819, that it ordered prosecution and, when Valladolid proposed, November 12, 1818, to grant audiencias de cargos to Lazaro Matilla, this was not confirmed until June 15, 1819.[215]

Prosecution of the absent and of the dead formed, especially in the earlier period, a large part of the work of the Inquisition. The sudden development of systematized persecution naturally caused the exodus of thousands of Conversos, in spite of the arbitrary measures adopted to prevent their escape, while the details adduced in the trials furnished evidence against other thousands, who had died in external orthodoxy. It was no part of the policy of either Church or State to condone the offences of the fugitive or of the dead. If the faith could not be vindicated by burning their bodies, it could at least exhume the bones of the departed for cremation and could symbolically consume with fire the effigies of those of whom neither the bodies nor the bones could be had, while the fisc gathered in the confiscations which followed on condemnation, including the collection of debts and the forfeiting of alienations.

PROSECUTION OF THE DEAD

In this there was nothing repugnant to the spirit of the age, or of the Latin systems of jurisprudence. In the spiritual sphere the Church had long been accustomed to pass judgement on those who had passed to the judgement-seat of God, and to exhume the remains of any heretic buried in consecrated ground.[216] The imperial jurisprudence was equally unforgiving in cases of majetas, or treason, in which the dead could be prosecuted and their estates be confiscated, and the Theodosian Code extended this to heresy.[217] As recently as 1600, in Scotland, the bodies of the Earl of Gowrie and his brother were brought into court to be present at their trial, and were duly sentenced to be hanged, quartered and gibbeted; in 1609, Robert Logan of Restalrig, three years after death, was accused of complicity in the Gowrie conspiracy, when his bones were exhumed to grace the trial in which he was convicted and his estate was confiscated.[218] As regards fugitives, in the Continental systems of criminal law it was regarded as absurd to allow contumacious absence to defeat justice. In Aragon the absentee was summoned at his domicile to appear within fifteen days, after which he was reputed contumacious and his trial proceeded, but he had the right, even after sentence, to return and appeal, on reimbursing to the accuser his expenses.[219]

The abundant harvest thus provided for the early Inquisition may be estimated from the statement by a contemporary that, at the Toledo auto de fe of July 25, 1485, there were burned the effigies of more than four hundred dead and as many in that of May 25, 1490. The ceremony was impressive. A great monument, covered with black, was erected in front of the staging occupied by the inquisitors. The sentence of each culprit was read and, as his name was called, the monument was opened and an effigy, arrayed in Jewish grave-clothes, was brought out and condemned as a heretic. Then a great fire was built in the centre of the plaza, and all the effigies were consumed, together with the disinterred bones. After this their names were announced in the cathedral, with a summons to the heirs to appear, within twenty days, and render an account of their inheritances which belonged to the king.[220] We might suspect these figures of exaggeration were there not other evidences of the magnitude of the work in progress and of the informal haste with which it was conducted. In 1484, at Ciudad Real, a single proclamation to the children and heirs, to appear and defend the deceased, contains the names of sixty-one dead persons on trial and a single sentence condemns forty-two, with a common enumeration of the Judaizing practices asserted to be proved against them. In none of these cases did the children and heirs put in an appearance to defend the memory and fame of the dead.[221]

These reckless and indecent proceedings were based on the Instructions of 1484, which evidently reflect the current practice in ordering the prosecution of those who had been dead even for thirty or forty years, and their property with its fruits to be taken from whomsoever is found in possession, although a MS. copy contains a clause, omitted in the printed editions, exempting from confiscation property held in good faith by good Catholics, for fifty years or more.[222] In view of the activity at Ciudad Real and Toledo, it seems somewhat superfluous that Torquemada, in his supplementary Instructions of 1485, deemed it necessary to warn the tribunals that the prosecution of the living should not cause them to neglect the dead, so that their bodies may be disinterred and burnt and their property be seized by the fisc.[223] How far back the retroactive energy of the tribunals extended may be gathered from the case of Fernan Sánchez who had been converted about 1416, had lived as a Christian until his death in 1456, and who yet was disinterred and burnt and his estate confiscated by the tribunal of Cuenca and Sigüenza, probably about 1525.[224]

PROSECUTION OF THE DEAD

Notwithstanding the massing of cases in the citations and sentences, the formalities of the somewhat cumbrous procedure were duly observed. The trials were not speedy, but, as large numbers were in progress together, only the scantiest attention could be paid to each and the result was a foregone conclusion. A single case will illustrate the process. At Ciudad Real, August 8, 1484, the fiscal is recorded as appearing and saying that he desires to proceed against certain deceased persons and among them Beatris González. He asks the inquisitors to issue their letters of summons, citation and edict, so that the children, heirs, kindred and others who wish to defend their bodies and bones, their fame and property, may appear. The same day the edict is issued, directed to the representatives of Beatris and two others, some of the kindred addressed being named and others included under the generalization of parties interested. The edict recites that the fiscal is about to accuse Beatris and the others of Judaism, and asks to have them summoned in defence, wherefore they are cited to appear within thirty days after the edict is read to them, or before their house-doors, or published in the public square, or read in the church of San Pedro and affixed to one of its doors; if they come, they will be heard with the fiscal, and justice will be rendered; if they do not appear, the fiscal will be heard and the case will go on without them to the end. The thirty days constituted three terms of ten days each, at the end of each of which the fiscal appeared before the inquisitors and accused the rebeldia or contumacy of the parties cited and, at the end of the third, on September 6th, he presented the accusation, a copy of which was ordered to be given to the children, with nine days in which to answer it. At the expiration of this time, on September 14th, the fiscal accused the further rebeldia and concluded; the inquisitors received the case to proof and assigned thirty days for it. On October 20th, the fiscal presented four witnesses, who were separately and secretly examined by the inquisitors, the testimony consisting of the usual details of observing the Sabbath by lighting candles and wearing clean linen, with an intimation of having chickens killed by decapitation. Then followed an interval, until January 18, 1485, when the fiscal asked for publication of evidence. The inquisitors granted this, ordering copies given to him and to the children if they ask for it, and assigning a term of six days for concluding. On January 24th the fiscal accuses the persistent rebeldia and concludes; the inquisitors hold the children to be contumacious and conclude the case, assigning for sentence the third or any following day. All this was in preparation for the great auto de fe of March 15th, where the sentence was read, condemning in mass a large number of the dead, confiscating their property and ordering their bones to be dug up and burnt.[225] This was the procedure under which thousands of the dead were condemned and their properties seized from the existing owners; the forms of justice were comfortably preserved; no heirs or children ventured to appear in defence, and the condemnation might as well have been pronounced at the beginning.

This facility offered temptations to act on insufficient evidence and occasionally, when persons of importance were concerned, there was a contest, as at Saragossa where, on March 10, 1491, the fiscal presented his clamosa against a number of the dead, whose representatives defended them with persistent energy until December, 1499, when there were eight condemnations and three acquittals.[226] Some check on the abuses inevitable to the system was attempted, in the reformatory Instructions of 1498, which order that no prosecution of the dead is to be commenced unless there is proof sufficiently complete for condemnation; the practice of suspending cases where proof is imperfect is prohibited, in view of the hardship endured by the heirs, who are unable to marry or to dispose of their property and, under such circumstances, acquittal is ordered. Procrastination and delay are also forbidden, and cases must be determined speedily.[227]